One thing that I dearly hope is addressed and resolved by the end of this new trilogy is the relationship between Luke and the Force ghosts of Obi-Wan and Yoda. They HAVE TO address it in a very robust manner. If they don't, it'll be an enormously cowardly move on their part. Having two of the most powerful Force masters ever, being able to mentor Luke and freely converse with him (Obi-Wan's spirit was just casually walking the swamps of Dagobah!) - man, that's a huge problem for writers. It also begs the question, "Well, shouldn't Anakin's Force ghost be there mentoring Luke as well?" Yes. Yes it does.

They MUST eradicate these ghost-Force-Masters as they provide for far too many opportunities to generate huge plot holes. Luke is at a tremendous advantage with these Force ghosts milling about...

"Dodge to your left Luke!"

"Forward roll you must!"

"Son, there's a bounty hunter posing as a barman in that cantina, and he's poisoned an umbrella garnish for your iced Tantooine Tea. By the way, stop drinking that swill Luke. The artificial sweeteners will eat holes in your brain..."

We know from the end of Ep. III that Qui-Gon Gin's spirit TAUGHT Yoda about these Force ghost intricacies! That Force Ghost Trio would give Luke an enormous advantage in everything that he'd ever encounter.

And if Leia does die in some way, and regardless of the circumstances and distance, Luke would HAVE TO KNOW about it because of his connection to her. For them to write anything otherwise wouldn't align with what was established in the prior movies.

Maybe we'll see the command bridge of Snoke's gigantic star destroyer, and he's pacing back and forth in his golden robes in front of several figures wearing gear that looks technologically advanced, and quite intimidating. As the camera pans up the legs of Snoke's dreadful bounty hunters, we'd see the faces of Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson!

*cue Ray Parker Jr.'s hit theme song*

I don't care how they do it, those Force ghosts have to get busted...!

Isnt the whole idea of becoming more powerful than you can imagine due to my discipline in taking the long way to power instead of the easy path? If they make force ghosts disposable... then this whole notion is moot... whats the point. short life... rule with an iron fist darkside supreme!

From Hokusai:If they make force ghosts disposable... then this whole notion is moot... whats the point. short life...

I don't think that it *has to* make the whole notion moot.

Think of the hundreds (if not thousands) of generations of Jedi who died prior to Qui Gon Gin's "consciousness retention" discovery - was their service to the Light Side of the Force wasted because their consciousness were completely reabsorbed by the Force? This leads to me wonder if their consciousness are completely reabsorbed, then is that to a Perfectly Neutral Gray Balance of the Force, or to a "heavenly/paradise" like Light Side of the Force? Makes my head hurt just to ponder that, but it's an important question. If the Light Side Force adepts are completely reabsorbed to a Perfectly Balanced state of the Force, then that does beg the question (for me anyway), what IS the point, after all, the Dark Side Force adepts are completely reabsorbed as well due to their greedy pursuit of material pursuits during their material existence. Right? Dark Siders are "punished" by being DENIED any sort of consciousness retention, yet till Qui Gon Gin came along, the same was true for the Light Siders.

It seems to me that The Clone Wars and Rebels TV series have canonically established that the conscious spirit of Force adepts CAN continue on and have influence on the material plane LONG after their deaths. In fact, when looking at it from this perspective, the Dark Siders have far more manifestations of their malicious spirits than we witnessed from anyone aligned with the Light Side (this is even in spite of Yoda calling his vision of Darth Bane "...an illusion..." and "...not real..." because of how frequently we hear whispers of evil spirits around Darth Sidious, Darth Tyranus and the Night Sisters; these voices were "recognized" as EXISTING to these Dark Side adepts).

For myself, the spiritual side of Star Wars needs some significant elaboration and truncation. As it stands right now, it creates a whole host of mammoth traps for generating unavoidable plot holes. Having consciousness retaining Light Side ghosts operating in the material plane makes them tremendously overpowered. They are The Ultimate intelligence agency, and, honestly, how can they be circumvented from going anywhere and observing anyone? Does the Dark Side limit their powers and "repel" them? This makes sense for when they were still trapped in a physical body, but they're now as Free as free can possibly be. What barrier could stop them, they are, after all, already "One with the Force..." which is everywhere and bindseverything...?

I can only hope that if the intentions of this trilogy are to bring the Skywalker saga to an end, and that's due to finally being able to achieve True Balance with the Force (wait, didn't Darth Vader/Anakin already do that?), that it then means that overpowered Force ghosts become a thing of the past while simultaneously reducing the insatiable impact of the Dark Side on the material plane.

I think you're being a bit hyperbolic about this whole thing. It isn't a mess and it wouldn't be "cowardly" if they didn't address it in a "very robust way." Shit like this exists in all fantasy and I think viewers are generally smart enough to take certain narrative leaps to make things like Force Ghosts make sense.

Where I do sort of align is that Lucas unnecessarily created a needless storyline about the origin of Force Ghosts, how one becomes a Force Ghost, and what this means for the Light Side as far as the balance of the Force is concerned. It would have been simpler if any Jedi disappeared and became a Force Ghost when they perished. That was my impression of how this worked when I watched the OT and it didn't need further explanation. If you wanted it though, I think the rules are fairly well-established:

- Force Ghosts only manifest themselves to Force users they have formed a connection with through the Force- Force Ghosts cannot and do not provide information about the earthly plane to the living

So no, I do not think there is any narrative cheat that can happen with the existence of Force Ghosts. The movies have made it clear that they cannot just appear anywhere, find out some shit, and then report back to the living about what's going on like some Game Genie cheat code or as a "Chloe" to the hero's Jack Bauer. Remember: Obi-wan "cannot interfere" with Luke's confrontation with Vader, nor did he step in to save him when Luke was inches from death even though he was "the last hope."

In other words, the Force Ghosts are there for wisdom and guidance, and their knowledge is limited to what they acquired prior to perishing. They are Jor-El to Kal-El.

It would be an amazingly challenging feat for the sequel trilogy to fix all the confusing rules that Lucas created, and progress the narrative in new and interesting ways. In my opinion, the ST should address the larger narrative issues it has created for itself - i.e. who is Snoke and why is he suddenly this big bad when Palpatine was the main threat for 6 movies - and not bog itself down in shit that is completely unimportant to 90% of the audience.

There's nowt wrong with the concept and depiction of Force ghosts in Star Wars, to date (IMO). The only caveat is that I think they'd need some modicum of sensible exposition to explain if Yoda, Obi-Wan and Anakin are no longer around to guide Luke.

From CoGro...Where I do sort of align is that Lucas unnecessarily created a needless storyline about the origin of Force Ghosts, how one becomes a Force Ghost, and what this means for the Light Side as far as the balance of the Force is concerned. It would have been simpler if any Jedi disappeared and became a Force Ghost when they perished. That was my impression of how this worked when I watched the OT and it didn't need further explanation.

I agree 200% with you. It wasn't a problem till Lucas created it. It's there though, and that's my point.

Look at the sheer quantity of lore that surrounds it - it's large. It thus cannot be ignored. It also can't be successfully addressed with a few lines of dialogue.

Now, could Disney ignore it or attempt to set it aside with a few sentences? Sure. But it's hard to imagine that it wouldn't end up sucking in an epic fashion.

From CoGro...The movies have made it clear that they cannot just appear anywhere, find out some shit, and then report back to the living about what's going on like some Game Genie cheat code or as a "Chloe" to the hero's Jack Bauer. Remember: Obi-wan "cannot interfere" with Luke's confrontation with Vader, nor did he step in to save him when Luke was inches from death even though he was "the last hope."

In other words, the Force Ghosts are there for wisdom and guidance, and their knowledge is limited to what they acquired prior to perishing. They are Jor-El to Kal-El.

Actually, the movies don't demonstrate that at all.

First, keep in mind that Lucas DID contemplate that the Force ghosts could have an ENORMOUS impact on the physical realm. In the original draft of The Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan "physically" enters the battle against Vader and the Emperor to help Luke, and with his (immaterial?) lightsaber! Well, none of that is canon (thankfully), because it (wisely) didn't happen in the final film, but do we have evidence of Force spirits being able to impact the material plane in other ways?

Yes. Obi-Wan's admonishments to Luke during the Death Star trench run. That was Obi-Wan giving Luke advice in real time over a critical real event, "flying along with him" as his X-Wing sped over the station's surface.

His ghost appears to Luke on Hoth to tell him to get to Yoda - all of which had enormous consequences for the entirety of the film universe. Imagine if that didn't happen... All of those physical consequences would never have occurred.

He did his best to keep Luke training on Dagobah, so as to avoid Vader's trap that Obi-Wan somehow already KNEW about. How many lightyears away was Vader's trap from that swamp planet at the time? Yet, there it is. He collected that data from a location many lightyears away, and then faster than the speed of light, relayed that info to Luke.

When Luke left Dagobah's surface, Obi-Wan and Yoda discussed Leia. That is, they were making PLANS to INTERACT with her should Luke fail. They didn't have any concerns about being able to find her should it be necessary, something that Obi-Wan certainly wouldn't have known (or could ever know) about prior to his being cut in two by Vader's saber.

There's more that I could detail from within the films themselves, but I'm quite certain that the evidence that was collected from Lucas' own hand is already more than suffice to prove my point.

And I've already supplied details regarding the importance of Force spirits in The Clone Wars and Rebels TV series, but I neglected to mention the enormous ramifications of The Ones, the highly dysfunctional family of three Force spirits. They have their own consciousness (even the Dark Side son), and are able to interact with the material plane (that's how Anakin, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka got there). It was the Father who declared that Anakin was The Chosen One. See my other thread here for how this is now an issue for Disney ( http://millenniumfalcon.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=2026&t=10055 ).

First, keep in mind that Lucas DID contemplate that the Force ghosts could have an ENORMOUS impact on the physical realm. In the original draft of The Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan "physically" enters the battle against Vader and the Emperor to help Luke, and with his (immaterial?) lightsaber! Well, none of that is canon (thankfully), because it (wisely) didn't happen in the final film, but do we have evidence of Force spirits being able to impact the material plane in other ways?

Yes. Obi-Wan's admonishments to Luke during the Death Star trench run. That was Obi-Wan giving Luke advice in real time over a critical real event, "flying along with him" as his X-Wing sped over the station's surface.

All he tells Luke is to use the Force. He doesn't give him any new information: he motivates him using the same kind of language he used throughout the film. "Use the Force Luke! Let go, Luke!" In fact, nearly all of these lines are from earlier in the film. He doesn't say "pull the trigger as soon as you reach .85 clicks from the target exhaust port."

Arguably, all of this is just happening in Luke's head, as if he's recalling something Obi-wan told him previously rather than him actually speaking directly with him. "Trust your feelings" is said when Luke taps his head as if he's listening to an internal voice.

Kyle wrote:

His ghost appears to Luke on Hoth to tell him to get to Yoda - all of which had enormous consequences for the entirety of the film universe. Imagine if that didn't happen... All of those physical consequences would never have occurred.

He did his best to keep Luke training on Dagobah, so as to avoid Vader's trap that Obi-Wan somehow already KNEW about. How many lightyears away was Vader's trap from that swamp planet at the time? Yet, there it is. He collected that data from a location many lightyears away, and then faster than the speed of light, relayed that info to Luke.

When Luke left Dagobah's surface, Obi-Wan and Yoda discussed Leia. That is, they were making PLANS to INTERACT with her should Luke fail. They didn't have any concerns about being able to find her should it be necessary, something that Obi-Wan certainly wouldn't have known (or could ever know) about prior to his being cut in two by Vader's saber.

There's more that I could detail from within the films themselves, but I'm quite certain that the evidence that was collected from Lucas' own hand is already more than suffice to prove my point.

That's completely made up. You are making way too many assumptions about character motivations here for this to be a valid supporting argument.

If this "unresolved problem" makes it impossible for you to enjoy the ST, that's cool though.